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story category Comcast: 50/50Mbps To Half Their Users by 2010?
Aims to have DOCSIS 3.0 reach ten million homes...
(old news - 02:05PM Wednesday Feb 27 2008)
tags: business · bandwidth · cable · Comcast
Tipped by daveberstein See Profile
While Comcast has been very chatty in general about their DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades, demonstrating 150Mbps service several times last year to fawning media adoration, the company has kept deployment details, speed tier and pricing information close to the vest.

What we know so far is that the company says the upgrades can be accomplished with "couch change," and that they'll be aiming to have 20% of their footprint upgraded with the speedier service by the end of this year. DSLPrime's Dave Burstein has some interesting additional information in his most recent industry newsletter:
Click for full size
50 megabit, upstream and down, available to half the homes in America in 2010?

Brian Roberts of Comcast is leading the charge, planning to upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 for ten million homes in 2009. That's half his network. Motorola believes they will be able to deliver that speed in the upstream as well as the downstream, with equipment everyone is hoping will ship by the end of this year. This could be a nightmare for AT&T, Bell Canada, Qwest, and British Telecom. Comcast will be 20 times as fast as U-Verse on the upstream, and easily twice as fast downstream. The manufacturers tell me they are ready to supply equipment for 30-60M U.S. homes by 2010 if the cablecos want to move quickly. While the CTOs are very excited, the CFOs haven't yet approved the spending in other U.S. cablecos.
At the moment, limited upstream bandwidth is a seriously liability when competing with Verizon's symmetrical FiOS service (and, as evident by recent news, handling upstream P2P demand). With just a "couple billion dollars" and two solid years work, Comcast can be in a prime position to compete with Verizon's $23 billion FiOS deployment, and surpass what's offered by AT&T's $6.5 billion FTTN U-Verse deployment.

Comcast isn't confirming any deployment numbers beyond this year. "All we have officially announced is that we plan to introduce DOCSIS 3.0 to up to 20% of our footprint in 2008," Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas tells us. "We have not announced speed tiers, pricing or markets."

Related:
  1. Comcast To Deploy Femtocells
  2. Comcast, Cox, Trot Out Their Worst 'Bandwidth Hogs'
  3. Beating Comcast's Sandvine On Linux With Iptables
  4. Comcast Expands Switched Digital Video Trials
  5. Comcast Says They'll Play Nice With Vonage
  6. Comcast Expands New Throttling Tests
  7. Comcast 250GB Cap Goes Live October 1
  8. Industry Reacts To Comcast Cap Plans
Forums » Comcast: 50/50Mbps To Half Their Users by 2010?
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INT0CABLE
BANNED
Premium
join:2007-10-22
Bronx, NY

wow

wow

hopeflicker
Capitalism breeds greed
Premium
join:2003-04-03
Long Beach, CA

Re: wow

Nothing but

CAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPS
CAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPS
CAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPSCAPS
--
Man created God in his image : intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent.

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

Re: wow

What's the point of having 50/50Mbps when you're throttled/capped ?
--
Canada = Hollywood North

ih8aol

@comcast.net

thumbs down from:
Cabal See Profile

Re: wow

I agree with you entirely! We jusrt got switched from Insight to Comcast; very unhappy... Comcast trottles the speed at less than half of what I used to get. If Verizon FIOS came to town, I would switch in a heartbeat.

fishmaster
Premium
join:2004-10-08
Rockford, IL

Re: wow

You Noticed a 30-50% average drop in speed too
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syrkel2

join:2003-12-02
Galesburg, IL
yeah I agree. I just switched form insight to comcast in Illinois here and insight was she shiznit. I cant remember the last time that insight internet went down. and it was so fast too.
mogulero0

join:2005-04-21
Lakeville, MA

Verizon has a great product, for now. But their customer service sucks out loud. I have fios 20 over 5. I have Comcast phone service. I have tv with Comcast because fios tv is not available in our town as the town & Verizon cannot agree on a contract. When I try to contact Verizon about my fios service their voice queue keeps asking for my telephone number. In my opinion, Verizon maintains a culture of arrogance as AT&T did of yore.

Comcast sucks too but less.

So I am a whore for the fastest product, which, at the present time, is Fios. But when 50 over 50 comes down the pike I will be on it in a heartbeat.

TK Junk Mail
Go ahead, make my day
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Margate City, NJ
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·Comcast

said by en102 See Profile :

What's the point of having 50/50Mbps when you're throttled/capped ?
The caps will change upward as the infrastructure is improved. The current word is they tossed users that were well north of 100 GBs/month. So when the infrastructure is enhanced double, triple, etc, the caps will be too.
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hopeflicker
Capitalism breeds greed
Premium
join:2003-04-03
Long Beach, CA

Re: wow

said by TK Junk Mail See Profile :

said by en102 See Profile :

What's the point of having 50/50Mbps when you're throttled/capped ?
The caps will change upward as the infrastructure is improved. The current word is they tossed users that were well north of 100 GBs/month. So when the infrastructure is enhanced double, triple, etc, the caps will be too.
Highly unlikely. They will keep the caps intact to force users to pay more if they go over their invisible limit. Isn't that what big business' want? capitalize on everything?
--
Man created God in his image : intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent.

TheSaint

join:2002-01-25
Atascadero, CA
clubs:

Re: wow

I agree. The caps will stay in place otherwise they'll cannibalize off their business accounts.

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
You bet..have to make money where possible, and have your cake + eat it too.
--
Canada = Hollywood North

TK Junk Mail
Go ahead, make my day
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Re: wow

said by en102 See Profile :

You bet..have to make money where possible, and have your cake + eat it too.
You and the previous 2 posters are wrong. The caps will rise. You can bet on it.
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en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
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Re: wow

I don't disagree that caps will rise... however, I do suspect that the caps/filtering will be such that Comcast will still throttle or cap you for what they deem excessive, and not what _is_ excessive.
--
Canada = Hollywood North

TK Junk Mail
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edit:
February 27th, @02:51PM

Re: wow

said by en102 See Profile :

I don't disagree that caps will rise... however, I do suspect that the caps/filtering will be such that Comcast will still throttle or cap you for what they deem excessive
I agree with that. There will always be those who see it as a challenge to eat up every last bite of bandwidth whether they will ever watch anything that they actually download. And for people like that caps are necessary.
--
My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
·DSL EXTREME
·DSL EXTREME

Re: wow

True: Malicious traffic (open relays, hosting newsgroups, botnets, etc. ) and general hackers can be dealt with.

However, if I decide to stream HD video, lets say 8 hours / day, I should not be deemed and excessive user. For reasons like this, I'm still on DSL. No CAPS, no filters (smtp is currently filtered, but can be removed by request), and very little jitter.

In fact, DSL-Extreme doesn't care if I run servers off my connection.
--
Canada = Hollywood North
cornelius785

join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA

Re: wow

'excessive' bandwidth usage should be based on past history and current network load. it should not depend on what the data being transmitted is (game server data, p2p, youtube, etc.), only that it is data. i'd probably consider you an excessive bandwidth user for those 8 hours, assuming it is fairly often and network load is high. i'd have no problem limiting your connection during peak network usage (say ~90% utilization of network capacity) to allow for others that may need to do just sporadic downloading for small files.

in the end, it is not fair to those that don't do huge amounts of downloading or uploading all the time be penalized with a slower connection, packet dropping, or unstable pings because a few that saturate their connection all the time. ideally, caps should do this, but in reality probably not so much.

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
·DSL EXTREME
·DSL EXTREME

Re: wow

Well, lets say that there's a new company out there, pushing HD IPTV . All I need is an Internet connection. Now should my TV service over the Internet be capped because I don't want to pay for Comcast TV service ?
I've downloaded a few Linux DVD ISO images, on DSL, and have never had any issues (we're talking many GB here). If I'm paying for a 6Mbps line, I should be able to use it.

The cable model is based on high speed bursts, not sustained high end downloads / uploads due to the shared nature. They shouldn't oversell a node. Comcast even described this in their FCC statement yesterday. What sort of sucks is that its on a node by node basis where the issue occurs. You could be on a node with no traffic and consume almost as much as possible, while being on a node with a few high consumption neighbors, your status would degrade.
--
Canada = Hollywood North

CColon

join:2008-04-20
Philadelphia, PA
·Comcast

Re: wow

You fail to realize that along with the faster and bigger bus uplinks they are deploying from Nortel DOCSIS 3.0 allows them to bond frequencies to allow for the rise of caps. In 4 years of working for comcast in NJ, DE, and PA I have seen one customer get "the call" for excessive use, and he was later prosecuted for software pirating.
reelbigfish

join:2002-06-06
Boston, MA
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Re: wow

The reason for the caps is that bandwidth is currently limited and they are trying to preserve good performance for the majority of their users. Once the bottle neck is gone, the caps will rise in step with that. Comcast is out to make money, but when they no longer have a reason to have such low caps, they will go up.

And just because someone says something good about a company doesn't mean they are a shill.

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
·DSL EXTREME
·DSL EXTREME


edit:
February 27th, @03:58PM

Re: wow

I don't have any real issues with CAPS/throttling, as long as

A) I know the actual limit of MY usage before being capped/throttled.
B) My consumption limit isn't based on a neighborhood usage., but my usage.
C) All the cards are on the table BEFORE I sign up for service.

I've been thinking about migrating to Cable (TW here) for a package deal, or even AT&T, however, I use this line for business, and I don't want some corp. bean counter deciding for me that I can't run certain apps, or that I can't use a specific amount of bandwidth per month, or specific time of day.
--
Canada = Hollywood North

EG
CLINK
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join:2006-11-18
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Re: wow

Any tangible evidence ???
karlmarx

join:2006-09-18
Nashua, NH
·Fairpoint Communic..

I CHALLENGE your assertion. If right now, they 'kick' someone for over 200GB of usage on a 6/768 connection, and now they offer 50/50 connections, do you really thing they won't bounce you until you hit 1.8TB of data? I mean, if they increased the caps as much as they increased the speeds, I sure as hell wouldn't bother to buy the higher speed, I'd stick with my 6/768 connection an use 1.5TB per month safely. Caps, and they DO exist, will most certainly NOT go up.
--
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NyQuil Kid
8f The Nyquil Kid

join:2001-01-06
Brick, NJ
·Comcast

Are you people from the Barack Obama School of Technology? If we hope long enough, increased bandwidth will just appear? The money they make is what will enable them to make the investments needed to offer the faster speeds....

The level of intellectual disconnect displayed by forum posters is stunning...

[8F] The NyQuil Kid

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

Re: wow

Who says I need any more bandwidth ? I just don't need what I have capped/filtered/throttled
--
Canada = Hollywood North

BabyBear
Keep wise ...with Night-Owl

join:2007-01-11

Re: wow

said by en102 See Profile :

Who says I need any more bandwidth ? I just don't need what I have capped/filtered/throttled
Or passed on to any agency for "snoopage" purposes, including but not limited to NSA, CIA, RIAA, MPAA, FBI, AAA, DHS, FEMA, EU, ABC, 123, Do, Ra, Me.

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

Re: wow

That's why I'm not on AT&T... but DSL-Extreme
--
Canada = Hollywood North

gaforces
United We Stand, Divided We Fall

join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA
·Cruzio Internet


edit:
February 27th, @09:07PM

Re: wow

Who installed the switches and maintaines them for DSL Extreme? And where are they located?
Who's network does it go through?

Im kind of in the same situation, my packets go through ATT network and they could look if they wanted. I have no doubt about that.
--
Vista ~ Less functional every day!

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

Re: wow

True - everything goes through AT&T CO.
--
Canada = Hollywood North
dlewis23

join:2005-04-18
Boca Raton, FL

I do..... And so does any other web 2.0 developer.

We are tried of having to compress and lower the quality of our stuff so people with slow connections don't have to wait 10 minutes for the web app to load.

Once this, or even 10mbps starts to become the norm, you are going too see a exposition in the quality of the way websites look.

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
·DSL EXTREME
·DSL EXTREME

Re: wow

Agreed.. here's the 'issue'

A) DSL = lower bit rate, but typically you will hit your max w/o issue (eg. ADSL 6-7Mbps, VDSL at 10Mbps). Typically a better QoS on DSL, IMO.
B) Cable 6-25Mbps, slow downs during peak usage, but for bursty transmissions, and less distance limitations, Cable works well.

Think of DSL as token ring, and Cable as ethernet with a hub (not switch).

Unless I'm mistaken HD uncompressed is 19.2Mbps, and unless there's a queuing mechanism, I don't think you'll be having decently streamed HD over the internet for a while w/o buffering
--
Canada = Hollywood North
otis_sh

join:2007-05-04
Ann Arbor, MI

The caps are one thing, but them getting it wrong is another.

If you can't log into your account with them and see what you've transfered, you've got very little in the way of defending yourself when they get it wrong (and they do get it wrong sometimes).

Sure, who doesn't want that speed, and caps are even dealable with, but the secrecy and how they do things sort of puts a whole damper on that.

The problem is the corporate culture, the business practices, the secrecy, the arrogance. That's the problem. Fix that, the caps aren't really as big a deal anymore.

jt55

@comcast.net
he didn't say they would get ride of teh cap. they will just increase the cap some. everytime they increase there speed they have increase there cap a little but it is alway there.

Mr Anonymous

@comcast.net
What's the point of claiming they are going to provide (insert speed here) when they refuse to upgrade the cable system they own in your area so you can even have broadband?
quatrix

join:2005-02-11
Davie, FL
Your transfers happen faster. Not everyone needs faster speeds for the purpose of downloading a greater quantity. And considering what the majority of people who oppose caps use their connections for, they don't deserve it anyway.

viggent5

@comcast.net

from:
TK Junk Mail See Profile

are you guys retarded, i pay comcast for a 16mbps connection, and i consitently get 14-15, maybe you should clean out your computers instead of complaining like little girls

hopeflicker
Capitalism breeds greed
Premium
join:2003-04-03
Long Beach, CA

Re: wow

said by viggent5 :

are you guys retarded, i pay comcast for a 16mbps connection, and i consitently get 14-15, maybe you should clean out your computers instead of complaining like little girls
So you are one of the lucky ones. Are you saying that everyone that has speed issues has infected computers? pffttt!
--
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chakey
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Nice

It's nice to see someone else besides Verizon stepping up and moving to the next generation of infrastructure (cough, cough--QUEST).
dks7

join:2004-05-31

Re: Nice

That will be nice, give people a Ferrari, and a half a gallon of gas.
firewire9999

join:2004-07-11
Livonia, MI

Re: Nice

No No to regular gas. Has to Biofuel (we need to save the planet).

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
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said by chakey See Profile :

It's nice to see someone else besides Verizon stepping up and moving to the next generation of infrastructure (cough, cough--QUEST).
Course the "half" that will get it will be those in fios areas. for the 'havenots' the only thing DOCSIS 3.0 will do is allow nodes to be even more oversold!
--
You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth

BS

@rr.com

pul leeze

cable wont be able to keep up the demand...
majortom1029

join:2006-10-19
Lindenhurst, NY

How is this possibe with no upstream bonding modems?

Does any company actually have upstream bonding capable modems yet? The ones motorola released only are downstream bonding capable.

See 15 replies to this post
ANWDREW

join:2004-01-21
Sterling, VA

If by some chance it rivals FIOS

I would maybe give Comcast $ if they work out the
issues in sterling VA DOCSIS 2.0.

proefain
Premium
join:2000-05-08
Crofton, MD

To Half Their Users

And the other half where there is no competition will see what speed?

Shack

join:2002-01-17
Bloomington, IN

Re: To Half Their Users

6000/384
debo280

join:2008-02-07
Bradley, SC

Re: To Half Their Users

Stop Bitching

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

said by proefain See Profile :

And the other half where there is no competition will see what speed?
What they are currently getting. no need to give the 'havenots' anything extra.
--
You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth

MarkyD
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join:2002-08-20
Oklahoma City, OK
clubs:

cool and all...

but they severely limit how you can use that upstream bandwidth. no bit torrent seeding. Monthly consumption caps. I'll pass.
--
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tekmunki
Tekmunki
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Lake City, FL
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Re: cool and all...

And...

What about node congestion?

N3OGH
They both suck, we're so screwed
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Philly burbs

Re: cool and all...

This is when someone screams.

"IT'S NOT THE NODE!!!!"
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vzw emp

@qwest.net
how about not overselling the damn thing in the first place?

djdanska
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edit:
February 27th, @01:57PM

Drool......

I just got 20/2 last week with my provider (rcn) and totally love it. 50/50 would just be sweet! I can only wonder what they will charge for that speed! But, what good is 50 on the upload if you can't use it with bittorrent? (that whole sandvine/comcast issue) I don't think my webhosting provider would even let me upload files at that speed! Other than sending files to other comcast 50/50 users, what server has the capability of accepting 50 meg uploads?

But, i could be waay off here and most could. I don't know.
Either way, it would be a nice package.
--
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.